


Broken

by attackofthemutantcheesecake



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fighting, M/M, some fluff at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 04:24:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/744230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attackofthemutantcheesecake/pseuds/attackofthemutantcheesecake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John isn't whole. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Not anymore. But he may not be the only one.</p><p>NOT REWRITTEN, ALL THE CHAPTERS WERE JUST COMPILED</p><p>not a post-anything fic in case people were misled by my use of "anymore"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [seven-per-cent solution](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/19423) by johnnybooboo. 



> So I was following a lot of fanartists on tumblr and saw an illustration that I really wanted to make a story for. It's my first attempt dabbling in Sherlock fanfiction, so be kind :)
> 
> This used to be multi-chaptered but I decided to put them all in one since some of the chapters were too short and I wanted to maintain the separation.
> 
> Anyway, I'll let you get to it. I hope you like it and definitely check out the pretty thing this was based off.

He grunted as his head hit the floor with a sickening thump, the blankets tangled around him offering no cushion against the fall from the bed. The pressure around his throat was increasing incrementally and cutting off his air supply, but the weight above him was unyielding.

 

“ _John_.”

 

There was a beat of silence and a tortured moan before the choking hands withdrew abruptly. Sherlock jerked up, coughing and gasping at the sudden influx of air into his lungs. He ignored the grey at the edge of his vision and the building ache in the middle of his chest to grab John’s wrist before he could get up. Wide navy eyes stared into silver despite the solitary light source being the streetlamp outside. For a long while, the only sound in the room was Sherlock’s raspy breathing and the white noise of London in the background.

“I should-” John cleared his throat when his voice broke and made no more attempts to speak.

Sherlock could see the struggle to pull away, a ghost of the tremor in his left hand, the beading sweat on his brow, the sickly pallor of his skin, but took it as a good sign that John hadn’t made a serious try to leave. He could handle most other situations but that.

“I think I need some water,” Sherlock murmured when his breathing was back to normal.

John shot him a grateful look that he was allowed to escape if only for a moment to gather his thoughts and hurried into the adjoining bathroom. Sherlock sighed, heaved himself up off the floor and gathered the blankets back on the bed. He knew John would want to talk about it. Try to dissuade him from the decision of staying despite the frequent nightmares and PTSD that was indiscriminate in the darkness of night. But he was due for some sacrifices. Repeatedly John had showed him unparalleled tolerance, loyalty and faith. It was his turn to do the same. And if anyone could cure him of this, the man who also cured him of a psychosomatic limp would probably be up to par.

There was the slight sound of glass breaking and muffled swearing. Sherlock rose from the bed and strode into the bathroom noting the bloody shards of glass littering the sink, displacing his experimental set up of teeth in different brands of coffee and tea. John was running water over his hand in the bath, blood welling from a well-sized gash in the middle of his palm and several smaller cuts on his fingers. His shoulders were trembling and he made no move to acknowledge that Sherlock had walked in.

“I can’t… I can’t do this Sherlock.”

“Oh please. If this is going to be another speech on the benefits of leaving to protect me, I don’t want to hear it. I suffered through a conversation about it with you once before, I’ve no wish to rehash the same boring shite with you again,” he said harshly over the pounding in his ears. Already he could see that something was different, a set to John’s shoulders that wasn’t there before.

Why? He had these nightmares frequently even after they started sleeping in the same bed. He’d never showed discomfort at Sherlock witnessing him waking up sweaty, out of breath and almost speechless at the lingering phantom taste of blood in his mouth. He’d even seemed relieved that someone was there to rub soothing circles on his back and lull him to sleep with meaningless chatter. What made tonight different?

He glanced at the mirror beside him and flippantly noted the hand-shaped bruise darkening the pale flesh at his neck before he noticed John had finally looked up and had just as quickly looked away, face contorting at the sight. Ah. It was the first time that he was hurt in exactly one of the many scenarios John had repeatedly said could play out especially with the PTSD still in a corner of his brain. In the moment of realization, another came at its heels. This time, nothing as inane as words would ever be able to convince John to stay. 

Just as the thought lodged itself painfully between his ribs, John braced both hands on the tub’s edge, wincing as his injury made contact with the cold porcelain, and pushed himself slowly to his feet. Suddenly the lines on his face looked deeper and the dark circles under his eyes more prominent against the soft skin under his eyes. He was tired, sleep deprived and painfully guilty, a dangerous frame of mind to be in when making the decisions Sherlock was sure would fall off his lips within the next five seconds.

“I let myself believe you when we talked before. That you would be okay and that I would never hurt you. More than anything, I wanted… ah fuck… I really want to be with you Sherlock. But not like this. Not like how I am.”

John still wouldn’t look at him, seemingly mesmerized by the sight of red on the sterile white of the bathtub. He was shrinking, folding into himself both physically and mentally. Sherlock couldn’t reconcile this image with the larger than life presence that surrounded him every day, the constant unseen force of nature that kept him anchored and, more importantly, sane. He stalked forward and jerked John’s chin up to meet his eyes, needing the small bit of contact as his previously absent heart came dangerously close to the precipice of an abyss he wasn’t ready to look down into.

“Like what?”

“Broken.”

John sidestepped him and shuffled out, leaving Sherlock alone to stare at the scarlet ribbons snaking out on the surface of the water slowly filling the tub.

-

He turned off the tap.

In the first few seconds he blinked and tried to breathe.

Then the waves crashed hard and almost knocked him off his feet.

 

The noise in his head was turning into _John can’t leave me_

long silver needles burning hot by his temples _He told me he would never_

and behind his eyes. It was too much, the pain in his head and his neck and the empty _he needs me_

cavity between his lungs.

 

Exhaustion was weaving sticky threads in his consciousness, hunger was cramping his stomach. He was gasping for air, choking on words, platitudes, anything just stay _stay what do I have to do I’ll do anything_ and he was clutching at his own throat pulling his hair clawing at his eyes just to stop the pain it hurts _it fucking hurts and it won’t stop_ and this is why they called him a _freak_ a _sociopath_ because he was only staring at his fingers curled around the faucet, eyes unseeing, the screaming in his head too loud for anyone but himself to hear

_John’s fault John’s fault I never used to hurt it never used to hurt caring hurts caring is NOT an advantage it is a crippling disability_

 

He stumbled back, forcing himself to walk upright instead of crawling like he wanted  
(adductor magnus pulling semitendinosus flexing biceps femoris relaxing semimembranosus)  
to the bookshelf, reaching up for the well-worn book  
(a 20th edition Grey’s Anatomy of the Human Body published in 1918)  
Carved into the pages of the thick tome was a hole where a box was nestled  
(Tectona grandis sp. from Indonesia, thirty five years old and would last longer as teak often does)  
with words carved on the surface  
( _fortitudo nunquam frangitur_ – strength of will never broken).

 

The syringe and the vial sat in its bed of velvet while numb fingers performed their fluid dance borne of practice and untiring repetition. The liquid was clear, it might as well have been water, but it was what his disgustingly human brain needed to catch up to the speed of thought.

He returned to the bathroom.

 

Blood is essence is it not. It feeds us, hydrates us, oxygenates us.

 

Sherlock pushed the plunger and eased himself down into the water to surround himself in John.

-  
-  
-

John hurt. His hand and his shoulder were burning and he could already feel the twinges in his leg that signalled the return of his limp. He trudged carefully up the steps to his room, pausing every so often to test that his leg could support his weight, and flipped on the light. It smelled a little musty because he only ever came up for clothes, and a thin film of dust coated everything except the bed. He stood for several minutes by the door, staring unseeing into space and mentally shying away from the creeping dark fingers of doubt wrapping itself around his head, before the wet slide of blood droplets on his fingers spurred him to action. He went to the closet to grab a shirt and his medkit, nearly forgetting that half of the inner door was a mirror. He tried to ignore his reflection while he rooted around, but the need to reassure himself that he made the right decision forced him to turn his head.

He nearly laughed at the ridiculous picture he made. His tan had an underlying paleness from under-maintenance and the uncooperative London weather. He picked out the grey streaks in his hair partially hidden because of its fairness, the bruised look of the bags under faded blue eyes and every line etched on the uneven planes of his face. Though his body remained lean because of his regular work hours both in the clinic and with Sherlock, it was irreversibly ruined because of a multitude of scars – bullets, knives, shrapnel- crowned by the ugly starburst on his left shoulder.

John glanced quickly to the doorway and refused to admit that he was disappointed that Sherlock hadn’t come after him. Then he did laugh, strained, hysterical, dry with unshed tears. An almost forty ex-soldier who got kicked out because he was useless to the army. A well-trained trauma surgeon still taking shifts at a clinic prescribing cold medicine to snotty five year olds. Everything that was himself disappeared in a twisted mass of nerves and flesh that couldn’t hold his hand steady. Everything that he could be was wrapped tightly around the mercurial whims of one Sherlock Holmes. An everything that he threw away because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants and the PTSD from moving his limbs like a meat puppet.

Sherlock held his strings. Sherlock cupped his sanity in long-fingered violinist hands. Sherlock owned raggedy Ann him. But not even a collector of useless odds and ends would be interested in damaged goods.

Especially if it couldn’t be fixed.

The discomfort in his hand was becoming too much to delay treatment so he shut the closet door firmly and went to work on himself on the edge of the bed. When he was bandaged and cleaned up, he pulled on his shirt, wincing as his shoulder pulled at an uncomfortable angle.

The best thing would be to try and salvage their platonic relationship. He could bear the loss of quiet murmured _Johns_ late at night, the familiar heavy weight of long legs on his lap, the warm smell of shampoo from a mass of curls shoved against his cheek and the fond looks over the bow of the violin. He could tolerate unnecessary requests, cutting sarcasm, insults to his intelligence and long stretches of the cold shoulder. He could shoulder the heavy mass of longing weighing down every word and movement whenever they so much as looked at each other. But he would never leave.

 

 _I can’t remember how to live without him_.

 

Sherlock could delete this. John could endure knowing that it was never meant to be.

With his mind made, John stepped resolutely back down the stairs and tried not to acknowledge that his leg was starting to tremble. His brow furrowed when he returned to the downstairs bedroom and saw that Sherlock hadn’t emerged from the bathroom.

“Sherlock?” he rasped softly and froze.

 _My blood, not his_ was the first thing that shot through his mind, but he was already hauling Sherlock out of the water. John grabbed at the syringe only half-filled and threw it violently against the opposite corner of the room.

“John?” Sherlock was dripping on the tiled floor.

His eyes were opened too wide, shining too brightly, and the corner of his lips was tilted in a mocking smile John had never been on the receiving end of.

“Hmmm… Let me guess. You can’t drag your bags down from your room because of your shoulder,” the smile turned into a sneer, but he made no move to escape the firm grip John had on the front of his shirt.

“Are you fucking stupid?” John hissed. “Jesus _Christ_ , Sherlock. I thought you were over this little phase.”

“Oh? Just like you’ve gotten over _your_ little phase?”

“What the bloody hell are you talking about?” John held on to the frayed thread of his self-control and resisted the impulse to shake.

Instead, he grabbed some clean flannels off the rack and pulled Sherlock back into the bedroom to dry him off. He went to gather a pyjama set off the pile of clean laundry by the bureau and turned to Sherlock crowding him up against the wall.

“Your little game to see how long it would take to fuck the virgin. I know it was disappointing when you found out that I wasn’t one. Frankly, I’m surprised that it took you so long to come up with an excuse to end our _relationship_. I even commend you on your acting skills. At first I thought you were an open book, your face is so easy to read, but you deserve an award for fooling me for so long.”

Sherlock ended the tirade breathing hard and was on the floor two seconds later, clutching a bloody nose and fending off a pissed John Watson.

-  
-  
-

“Tell me. How am I supposed to protect the single most important thing in my life when the nearest, biggest threat is myself?”

Sherlock looked up from icing his newly blackened eye and frowned. After the little scuffle, John had forced him into a dry pair of pyjamas and sat him down in the kitchen without further ado. When the frozen bag of peas was placed to his doctor’s satisfaction, said doctor had bustled around in silence until this.

He abhorred repetition, especially when it involved reminding him of his earlier erroneous conclusions no matter that it was inadvertent. The drug, which had run its course through a combination of time and the physical exertion required to stop John from punching him in the face, had helped move his mind in directions he was unable to turn to because of his stubborn refusal to accept sentiment as a motivator. He rolled his eyes at that. Ironic that taking the drug was in itself motivated by sentiment. And that the attempt to overanalyse the situation had brought him no right answers. He should have known that the machinations of something he never normally thought about would be beyond the understanding induced by an emotionally charged moment of weakness.

Of course his John didn’t think this was a game. Other people might have, in the past. People who thought he was a diagnosis, words on a page, a challenge to conquer both medically and personally. People who thought they knew how to deal with him but never spent enough time in his presence to truly learn to. People who saw his parts but not the whole.

 

Never John.

 

And he berated himself twice over, for not reciprocating the total faith John had placed in him and for relying on something other than John to tell him what was going on in that fair head.

The current object of his intense concentration was making tea by the stove like his words hadn’t just triggered the series of realizations Sherlock had been struggling toward. In fact, his voice was so devoid of intonation that if Sherlock hadn’t heard the words, it would seem like he was only making a casual observation, like nice day we’re having or it’s unseasonably warm for spring time.

It was disconcerting, not being able to see John’s face. Contrary to popular belief, he couldn’t read minds; only infer the most likely outcome from a given set of data, and John was only giving him data he already knew and therefore couldn’t use. An easy but controlled stance of someone not long out of the military, slight stiffness to the shoulder and leg indicating long healed but still remembered injuries, efficient movements indicating habit and repetition, and nothing else. It seemed like John had made his decisions and stubborn as he was, would be sticking to them.

Sherlock knew that he was a vastly intelligent man. Many of his social interactions had failed many times over in the past because he recognized the futility of effort. People only saw what they wanted to see after all and he had no time to correct their assumptions. But his intelligence didn’t allow for a one dimensional understanding of how things worked between people. Because in this he recognized the necessity of the struggle.

-  
-  
-

A mug of tea was warming his hands as he sat cross legged on the kitchen chair, staring directly opposite himself at a mop of inky black curls that topped quicksilver eyes bright with something other than a high. John supposed the effects of the drug had worn off a while back, especially since only half of the syringe’s contents were used, but he wondered at the nearly euphoric look in Sherlock’s eyes when it was clear what was going to happen next. At least on his part.

“I think I should move out.”

The statement was met with no changes in Sherlock’s expression. John frowned a little at the apparent dismissal but chose to ignore it.

“I mean completely and permanently,” he clarified.

“Yes, John. I’m quite aware of what you meant,” Sherlock waved his hand impatiently.

“I feel,” he said forcefully, ignoring the stab of hurt at the encouragement. “I feel that I’m doing more harm than good being here.”

He took a deep breath before continuing, “You can handle yourself. You survived for a long time before I came along and… well- I don’t mean that by moving out I’d be cutting you out too, God I could never leave you completely, yeah? It’s just that I think- I know that I don’t need to be here putting you in the way of my… problems. And if trying to understand me- fuck if I understand myself Sherlock- drives you to…”

The both glanced down at the tiny hole on Sherlock’s arm and back into each other’s eyes.

Sherlock giggled.

“Alright that’s it!” John shoved himself away from the table and started up the stairs to his bedroom, but his arm was suddenly trapped in a vice-like grip propelling him toward the sofa that was usually Sherlock’s domain. His mug of tea was shoved back into his uninjured hand and for the umpteenth time that night, navy met silver. Sherlock had kneeled in front of him, arms bracketing his shoulders against the back of the sofa.

“I will talk and you will listen, John. Five minutes.”

John nodded, chafing at the newness of Sherlock actually initiating a talk about _feelings_. Usually he was the one who introduced it to the conversation and even then only a bare minimum. Men would remain men no matter how unusual or extraordinary they could be.

“You have undoubtedly figured out that there were flaws in my earlier logic, but I will not apologize for the events of this night because without them I would not have had the epiphanies I was endeavouring to achieve. I realized that though I place my physical health and safety in your hands, I was still quite reluctant to surrender the entirety of my emotional well-being. It is difficult especially when one has not had a wealth of positive reinforcement in the past,” Sherlock paused, eyes searching, but John was shaking his head. This wasn’t the topic they were on.

“Yes, yes, I know. Not the issue we are currently facing, but important nonetheless. I just needed to reassure myself that you understood why I said what I said when you pulled me out of the bath.”

John flinched a little at that. Sherlock on the beginnings of a high was not something he wanted to see again. It was in the past and nothing he wanted to dwell on for too long.

“Ah. That’s right. Picture me back there, John,” one of Sherlock’s hands had migrated to his wrist and was stroking small circles there. “Picture me with that half measure in my bloodstream. Then picture me with more than a single dosage forced into my veins for several days in a row. I even overdosed once. It was an inevitable part of my lifestyle.”

Painful images disjointed from the Sherlock he knew in the present assaulted his mind’s eye. He could easily see smooth skin dotted with track marks, the billowing black coat spread along one of London’s many filthy alleys, tremors shaking long graceful fingers, more color leeching away from the already alabaster shade of Sherlock’s skin.

“Do you see John?”

His bandaged hand was lifted to a surprisingly warm cheek and nuzzled gently.

“You are not the only broken one.”

-  
-  
-

Sherlock watched as John worked through what was just said. Saw the moment of indecision as the meaning was finally absorbed, that they were on equal footing despite the pedestal John had placed him on. Felt the subtle shift in the atmosphere as decisions were reevaluated and revised. He merely kept rubbing his cheek gently into John’s hand

“That doesn’t change much Sherlock. It doesn’t make it less likely that I’ll strangle you in your sleep,” he was finally told as the bandaged hand pulled away from his grip and caressed the handprint on his neck.

He shook his head, “As always my dear John, you see but you do not observe. Must I really explain everything?”

The buttons on John’s shirt were easily dealt with and the finished mug of tea set aside. Sherlock splayed his hand firmly against what was left of death’s claim on John and leaned down to brush a kiss on the raised ridges of the scar.

“I was lax in my duty to remind you that I do love you.”

He smiled against skin when John huffed a surprise exhale and when twin bands of steel wrapped themselves around his waist without hesitation. Now they were getting somewhere.

“It occurred to me that perhaps the uncertainty was what was triggering your less than ideal reactions to the nightmares, so at odds with the usual state of knowing where we stood with each other. A simple solution would be to clarify every misconception,” he had worked his way up so they were staring at each other with their foreheads pressed and their lips a breath apart.

“I know how you think. There’s a reason why you shouldn’t expend the energy, especially if you’re going to put thoughts in my head,” Sherlock paused to flick a tongue against John’s lower lip, tasting tea and honey. “It will most certainly be wrong. Ask me why.”

“I should be worried that you’re becoming the functional adult in this relationship but so far everything you’ve been saying makes sense,” they shared a short laugh. “Alright you git, why?”

“Because no matter what you think, of me or of yourself, I will never be bored of you. For a puzzle to be, it must have cracks. It must have been disassembled so the parts can be put back together. And if it was put back together perfectly, it holds no more appeal. You have too many cracks to ever be perfect and I could spend the rest of my life reassembling your parts and never get the same picture.”

He felt John freeze beneath him, arms convulsing minutely around his waist before he was hauled up and around so their positions were reversed.

“It’s either you hit your head when we were rolling about or I was lied to when they said drugs were a bad thing,” John murmured right next to Sherlock’s ear before ducking to nose the bruise on his neck.

“Honesty worked fine for us even before we started redefining our relationship. I correctly assumed that my inability to express much in the way of sentiment was weighing more heavily on you than I thought.”

“What brought this spate of self-depreciation on then? I remember the days when you would more likely give Anderson a French kiss than admit you were wrong,” John chuckled breathily when Sherlock pinched him.

“I wanted to prove that I would do anything to keep you from leaving,” he answered quietly. “If all it takes is to admit that I was too afraid to show you what I felt, it is not such a big sacrifice. Not in the face of all you’ve done for me.”

He knew John understood when all the tension seeped away abruptly from the warm body in his lap. It wasn’t such a major change, only an unexpected one. Sherlock was proving more open to intimacy than either of them thought in the beginning and he found the concessions he made this night didn’t grate over his nerves at all. Nothing would ever change the most basic parts of his being, the arrogance, the brilliance, the blatant disregard for roundabout social conventions, but these were things John had already accepted about him, embraced even.

John’s weight began to pin him steadily against the sofa and Sherlock realized it was because he was falling asleep. He rearranged the both of them more comfortably and wrapped himself around the single most important thing in _his_ life, more than drugs ever were and more than work could ever be.

“Sherlock.”

“Hmm?”

“Every broken off piece, I’ll replace it with one of mine. So you’ll never have to worry about me leaving again okay?”

They both fell asleep just as the sun painted a bright stripe of yellow on the wall.


End file.
